racingnews365.com·
McLaren reveal F1 rivals 'inspiration' behind 2026 car update plans
McLaren has decided it will not follow a path set to be trodden by
many of its F1 rivals and throw updates at its 2026 F1 car before
the season-opening Australian Grand Prix. All 11 F1 teams are
scheduled to test their new machinery at Barcelona's Circuit de
Catalunya over five days next week. For many, it will be a question
of how quickly they can develop the car after the test and across
the two three-day tests to follow in Bahrain in February before
they head to Melbourne for the curtain-raiser on March 6-8.
McLaren, though, is to bide its time, with chief designer Rob
Marshall insisting the team wants to "understand" the car first
before deciding in which direction it needs to head with potential
upgrades. The process stems from the fact that the cars possess new
power units and associated aerodynamics, and will need time to
finesse, and appreciating, as well, that it may see parts on other
cars that may play a role in its own development. Speaking to
invited media, including RacingNews365, Marshall said: "Between
Barcelona and Melbourne, I think what you see is probably pretty
much what we'll bring to the first race. "A lot of our effort will
be in understanding this. Also, we need to take into account what
the opposition is up to: we need to be inspired by what they may or
may not achieve and may or may not show us. "We really are going to
have to be very focused on getting our heads around this car. It's
very complicated. It's all new. "There's a lot of stuff that we
need to dial in and tune in, so I think bringing a lot of new stuff
to it, early doors, would complicate stuff. "I think we're better
off understanding our platform before we get too keen on
redesigning it before it's turned a wheel." McLaren take Austrian
route Team principal Andrea Stella has outlined that McLaren will
only conduct a shakedown on Monday in Barcelona before starting to
test the car properly from Tuesday or Wednesday. One of the reasons
for such a decision is that McLaren is pushing the development of
its launch car as late as possible. "The car is in AVL in Austria
to run on the dyno," said Stella, referring to the cutting-edge
technology company which specialises in the testing of powertrains.
"This is common practice now in F1, such that you can sign off some
fundamental systems of the car much more than you can when you run
some of the sub-systems, like the gearbox in a gearbox rig, and the
dyno we have here at MTC. "It [AVL] is a facility that we have been
using for some time, and that's where the car is at the moment, and
then the car will be in Barcelona for the shakedown on track. This
will happen directly at the test. We plan to start testing either
on day two or day three, so we will not be testing on day one. "We
wanted to give ourselves as much time as possible for development,
and you are allowed to test three days over the five that are
available in Barcelona."
